Thursday was a big day for Scottish Labour. Within minutes of the declaration that Labour had retaken Rutherglen and Hamilton West from the SNP, phones and social media lit up with triumphant messages from the winning party. And with good reason. This was the best result for Labour in a Scottish byelection since the second world war, and the worst for the SNP since the independence referendum upended Scottish politics.
Some caveats apply. This was one of the SNP’s most marginal seats, where Labour prevailed as recently as 2017. A cloud of scandal hung over a contest triggered after the sitting MP Margaret Ferrier was sanctioned for repeatedly breaking Covid rules. As Boris Johnson has learned, voters judge such behaviour harshly.
This was nonetheless a stunning result. The swing to Labour, at 20 points, was nearly double what would be expected from opinion polls which were already registering a substantial Scottish Labour advance. If such a swing were replicated across Scotland in a general election, Labour could gain 40 seats or more, all but wiping out the SNP. A decade of nationalist dominance would be swept away in a great red restoration.
While such waves are not impossible in our volatile political times, they are not likely either. Thursday’s giant swing may instead reflect the appearance of a pattern familiar elsewhere: disgruntled voters registering their unhappiness with a weakened, scandal-tainted incumbent party. The SNP has run Scotland since 2007, and 2023 has been their most torrid year to date. Things may be different in a general election when Scottish eyes turn south to Westminster. But Labour doesn’t need a Scottish landslide. The smaller, but still substantial, advance registered in polling is already enough to bring 20 SNP seats or more into play.
Labour can say they are running hard to defeat the SNP in Scotland. There will be no need to bargain with a rival on the ropes
There were hints also in Rutherglen of something else which could boost Labour prospects in Scotland: anti-SNP tactical voting. The Conservative vote in the seat collapsed and the Liberal Democrat vote halved, as voters focused their attention on the top two contenders. Scottish Conservative voters, aware their party is out of the running locally and nationally, may be coming to see a tactical vote for Scottish Labour as a second-best option, a means to eject the SNP and show support for the union. Newly published polling research from the Tony Blair Institute suggests as many as one in six Scottish Conservatives may be willing to cast a tactical vote for Labour in SNP v Labour seats. For a decade, the SNP have profited from the fragmentation of the unionist vote in Scotland. That advantage may be waning.
A return to electoral health in Scotland will have big implications for Labour in next year’s general election and beyond. Every seat taken from the SNP in Scotland is one gain less for the opposition to find in England and Wales. Gaining a dozen…
2023-10-07 09:10:51
Original from www.theguardian.com